Citizen Science showcase: Plastic pirates go Europe
Plastic particles make up a large proportion of the waste found in the oceans and on beaches. They pollute flora and fauna, get into the bodies of marine animals as "food" – and into the human organism through ingestion. To prevent further littering of the oceans, it is important to know where the plastic comes from. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the DLR Projektträger coordinated the implementation of the Citizen Science project "Plastic Pirates" and subsequently extended it to eight European partner countries on behalf of the European Commission. Under the motto "Plastic Pirates – Go Europe!", school classes and youth groups collect plastic waste from rivers, streams and beaches. The data they collected will be made available to researchers so that data gaps can be filled.
As DLR Projektträger, we are contributing our many years of experience in education and scientific analysis, as well as press and public relations work, to this citizen science showcase project. The DLR Projektträger European and International Cooperation Division is in charge of the contract.
Learning together from Citizen Science projects
Exchanging ideas, learning from each other, working together more closely in the future – these were the objectives of DLR Projektträger in 2022, which also participated in the European Commission's "Mutual Learning Exercise on Citizen Science Initiatives – Policy and Practice". Staff from the DLR Projektträger, sent as delegates by the BMBF, spent a year exchanging ideas with representatives from ten other member states. The aim was to share and discuss best practices, strategies and programmes of citizen science as well as experiences from European flagship projects such as Plastic Pirates – Go Europe!
To this end, DLR Projektträger, through its Science Communication Competence Centre, also organised a "Mutual Learning Exercise" meeting in Berlin . This in turn was part of the "Falling Walls Science Summit", where some of the most important figures from science, politics, business and the media discussed groundbreaking developments.